My March Madness Begins

My goal is 800 miles in March, but I am shooting for 1000.  I started by getting on the road at 5 on Saturday  and putting in 51 miles.  I wanted to practice getting up and riding in the dark.  Then Today (Sunday) I put in another 64, so 115 for the weekend.

Saturday took me around Lake Geneva then over to Delevan and then back home.

All the sand and salt from the road had my bike in need of a bath.

It aint Iowa but it aint easy either.

I didn't have a set direction on Sunday, and I ended up finding some nice roads on a long ride.

The bike path was closed, but its ok. Rails to trails are boring anyway.

My legs feel pretty torn after two longer rides in a row like that, but its good for them.  In 8 weeks for Trans Iowa I will need weekends like this to feel easy.  After spending so much time on the trainer the last couple months, my upper body and core got a wake up call this weekend.  

They are calling for snow again this week, I hope they are bluffing.  I would really like to get out to Iowa one of these weekends, but I'd rather wait till the snow is gone from their gravel roads.  Soon though.

Looking forward to more miles

- David

February Activities

With all the snow earlier this month I decided to dust off the cross country skis, no bikes allowed on this trail.

The skiing partners, they make it more of a bobsled race than a workout.  

The kettle moraine trails don't allow anything other than skiing when there is snow on the ground.  This makes for perfect grooves.  They even have separate lanes for skate skiers and classic skiers.

These trails get busy!

     I'm currently at 300 miles for the month with 4 days left. It will be unlikely that I reach my goal of 400, but I'm ok with that because I spent so much time on the skis instead of the bike.  My miles are low but my hours of activity double from last month.  I'm looking forward to March, shooting for 800 miles.  Weather today was perfect so hopefully that is a sign of warmer things coming.

-David

Kettle

 Went out to Kettle Moraine today.

It snowed overnight before I rode so the trails were completely undisturbed when I got there.  

It made for a tough ride, but good for trans iowa training.  I spent a lot of time running along the side of my bike since I couldn't get much traction up the hills in the fresh snow.  I was pretty jealous of the guys on fat bikes with snow tires, they were cruisin like it was a normal summer day.   

 

I decided to take the road back rather than the connector trail, that was a good decision.

Tricycle lawn decoration.

All said and done it took me 2.5 hours to ride 22 miles.  I probably would have been quicker on my cross country skis!  I think tomorrow morning I'm going to take the dogs out skiing with me.

Later, David

Cold night

Windchill of -11 degrees

From a couple weeks ago when it was warmer.

I went out and rode some of the bike paths around work tonight. I don't really know where all the paths are, but I know they are there because I have seen some highlighted on Google Maps.  I was able to find two of them though just by riding along.  One was plowed the other was drifted over pretty bad.  I actually preferred the drifted one though because the plowed one had some icy spots that were pretty slick.

I went to Wheel Werks Bikes yesterday before school to get some bike setup questions answered for Trans Iowa.  I also needed a new rear blinking light as my old one tanked.  I got the planet bike super flash turbo and as you can see in the picture up top it is almost as bright as my headlight.  Its claimed to have a 100 hr run time and as of right now those two lights plus a helmet light will be my trans iowa light setup.

Looking forward to some long miles this weekend and hoping it will warm up a bit!

-David

Hamster Wheel

One nice thing about riding inside... Your less likely to spill beer!

This week I have decided to wimp out on the cold days and ride inside on the trainer. I haven't ridden on the trainer at all since last winter, so it wasn't bad at first. I even linked a few days in a row, but its newness is wearing off and I want to get back outside.  Hopefully this weekend will present some opportunities.

Multitasking! Evan is reading up on the latest in Lean Manufacturing Techniques

The main thing you miss out on while riding inside is the chance to turn the brain off and ride.  When I'm riding outside, especially in the woods, my mind shuts off and I just concentrate on the task at hand.  It is nice to be able to do homework and ride bikes at the same time, but neither my legs nor my brain get the full work out.  I'm ready for warmer weather!

The El Mariachi is under going some changes, brakes and wheels at the moment.  The Hayes Stroker Ace are super powerful, but a bit overkill for the type of riding I do.  So they are on ebay right now and hopefully will be replaced with something nice.  I am thinking the simplicity of the BB7's with cables instead of hydraulic, but I may change my mind soon.  The rear wheel spokes made it through the year, but they are starting to loosen up on a regular basis now.  I will probably just replace the rear wheel for now but possibly the wheelset depending on overtime at work.  I need to start grabbing stuff for Trans Iowa too, so a rigid fork, frame bag, and a Garmin GPS computer may find its way on my bike as well.

I'll keep you updated.

-David

Southern Illinois riding video

The Big Muddy River, Photo from Wikipedia

      In a post awhile back I promised to post a video of some riding I did in southern Illinois, finally I got around to actually doing that.

      I am riding near Cedar Lake, which was created by damming up Cedar Creek.  Cedar creek is a tributary to the Big Muddy River, which joins up with the Mississippi south of Murphysboro, IL.  They are some very nice trails that my dad looked up the last time we were down to visit family. I also added a video of my sister and I goofing around.

Check it out!
-David

First Snow

Usually our first snow only lasts a day or so then is melted by warm weather right away.  This year our first snow has hung out for awhile.  I'm getting better at dressing for the cold, and have been getting some good rides in. Some rides I wonder if its worth the frozen toes, other rides I wonder why I used to put my bikes away in the winter!

This ride I took up to Sharon, WI where they have bike routes posted with arrows at intersections. There are 4 routes each around 20 miles, some shorter some longer.  This day I took the route to Darien, WI  then hopped on the route to Fontana, WI before heading back home. It was a nice Christmas Eve ride.

This ride I was feeling like a hero heading down this gravel road heading south with a hard wind pushing me along but when I turned around to head home it was much colder than I thought.

Kettle Moraine is AWESOME right now, the snow is so packed down that I don't have any trouble on my regular mountain bike.  My fastest time around the blue loop is 48 minutes and I made it around in the snow in just over an hour.  Half that loop was ridden after sunset with lights, so the snow really didn't slow me down to bad at all.  If the trails stay this nice I will have no problem keeping the bike rides going through the winter months.  The woods are warmer than the road with the slower speeds, less wind, and more ups and downs.  That makes dressing for it and staying out in it longer much easier.

Hells Kitchen has frozen over!

-David